My Favourite Self Help Books

We are fortunate that mental health stigma is reducing, that there is lots of help out there available for people and that there are many glorious individuals and organisations that have websites and books to help guide you through the ick. But unfortunately, there are still some self-help books that are rubbish, unhelpful, or downright dangerous because they claim to have a quick fix for what is a complicated and infinitely variable problem. Anything that says that you can be ‘cured’ is frankly, bullshit. Same for anything that says you only need to do a x week/month course, requires you to spend a crap tonne of money on only their specific thing, or doesn’t even go near the terms intersectionality/acknowledge the effects of privilege, disadvantage and the social structures and institutions that make things more materially difficult for some of us than others. However, there are a plethora of great books on mental health that are wide ranging, from memoirs to guides to hybrid memoir-guides. There are a few key differences however that are worth keeping in mind. 

Memoirs are specifically an individuals’ story of their life or experiences that may provide a way to see how they got through the rough times, but are probably going to contain descriptions of behaviour, feeling and experiences that may be difficult to read or trigger you. It is perfectly fine to start reading a memoir and decide it’s too close to the bone and stop reading it. You’re not being disrespectful to the author, or a bad person, you just need to give yourself a break. You might be able to come back to it, you might not, and that’s totally ok. For some people, it is hugely helpful and validating to read about someone else’s experience and think ‘oh my god someone else feels this way/has been through that too!’ It’s the centrepoint of campaigns like #metoo, to see how completely not alone you are in dealing with something super difficult. But it’s not for everyone, or even for every stage of your journey. If you start feeling icky, put the book down PUT IT DOWN and do something nice and calming to look after yourself. These may be worth passing on to friends and family if they want to have a better understanding of an issue, so long as you feel comfortable and know they understand that their story is not your story.

Guides- Personal There is a vast array of personal guides out there for many mental health issues and general life hacks that may be helpful, written by people who have been through a particular thing and want to share what they found helpful in an accessible way. These are more likely to be guide-memoir hybrids, with a bit of a personal narrative as an example, with a more specific coping strategy alongside it. These are totally hit and miss according to who wrote it to be honest. It’s also deeply subjective as to whether they are helpful or not, as even just the tone or personality of the writer will have an impact on this one. It’s worth having a little look at the writer’s experience and if they have any professional qualifications, and going with your gut as to whether you feel like trying what they recommend. If in doubt, check the website of somewhere like Mind or Rethink Mental Illness and see what they say, or check with a therapist or GP if you trust them and they are mental health specialists. 

Guides- Professional So this is where things tend to get a bit textbooky and possibly frustrating as a person who has mental health issues rather than someone who doesn’t and is doing a course. The good ones are written with service users and are recommended by a charity like Mind. The bad ones speak about people are problems to be solved, show no compassion and try to just put people into boxes for their symptoms and treatments like tiny neat packages. We are not tiny neat packages. Stay away from any package orientated books, it just feels dehumanising and you may feel the need to set the book on fire, which is dangerous. If you absolutely have to, rip the pages up instead. Then recycle them or use them as cat litter. Maybe even do some aggressive origami.

So there is a general guide to guides, because that’s where we are, people. Now for a specific guide to guides, because how else was this going to end? P.S I’ve chosen books for anxiety, depression, PTSD and insomnia because I have experienced them so feel able to review them appropriately. For other specific issues I would recommend searching for other bloggers or writers who have experienced them and try their recommendations. 

Anxiety

Memoir - Let’s Pretend This Never Happened by Jenny Lawson

I was literally crying with laughter at this book, it is honest, weird, almost unbelievable, ridiculous, yet somehow still relatable. Jenny Lawson also goes by The Bloggess and her writing always makes me laugh and feel seen, despite having grown up without a pack of geese terrorising me or throwing up inside a deer carcass. This is probably not for the squeamish.

Memoir/Guide - Frazzled by Ruby Wax

More of a guide than a memoir, this is funny and genuinely helpful, with actual advice you can reasonably follow and everything. Ruby Wax has an MA in  mindfulness-based cognitive therapy from Kellogg College, Oxford, which is blooming impressive on it’s own, and tells snippets of her own story battling mental illness alongside her legitimately professional coping strategies. She’s a rare gem. (Ruby? Gem? You get it!)

Memoir/Guide - The Life Changing Magic of Not Giving a Fuck by Sarah Knight

Mostly a guide based on the authors’ own experience, this is a delightfully sweary and light hearted, practical guide to reducing stress and anxiety by giving less of a fuck about what other people think/want/need and more about what you think/want/need, all without becoming an asshole. This is especially helpful for us people pleasers on the way to, or hurtling regrettably past, burn out. Start by not giving a fuck about using the word fuck and away you go!

I want to be calm by Harriet Griffith

Pocket sized guide to general causes and treatments of anxiety, helpfully broken into small chunks and including some super pretty graphics and pictures. A whistle stop tour of the basics and a few coping strategies to implement, it’s a great starting off point to build on.

Depression

Memoir - Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson

You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, it’ll change your life. No seriously, it is the gentle, hilarious and amazing call to all depressed people everywhere that we matter even when we really feel like we don’t, we’re worthy even when we really feel like we’re not, and that sometimes mental illness can be so ridiculous it’s actually funny. It’s warm and sweet and has a taxidermy raccoon called Rory and not taxidermy cats called Hunter S Thomcat and Ferris Mewler.

Memoir/Guide - How to be Human by Ruby Wax 

Ruby Wax takes her not insubstantial brain, adds a neuroscientist and a monk, and discusses how to be human. What do all those squidgy bits and chemicals and vessels even do? If we have a soul, where is it, what is it, what does it do, and how do we make it happy? This book doesn’t answer these questions exactly but it does sort of explain some of our physical bits and spiritual bobs and how we can help them get along and be nice to us during this bizzare old life we lead. 

Memoir/Guide - The Self Care Project by Jayne Hardy

Jayne Hardy is the creator of The Blurt Foundation, which is a website dedicated to helping people with depression, including loads of free info about what it’s like and the adorable Buddy Boxes that you can get for yourself or a loved one. This book explains how she started The Blurt Foundation, what self care is, why it is important, and why you are important. Yes YOU. It is warm and empathetic and kind and made me happy cry twice. 

PTSD I always find it more difficult to find accessible, helpful books about PTSD that provide coping strategies or paths to recovery than I do with depression or anxiety. There are many insightful memoirs written by people about their experiences, but I have found them difficult to read as the descriptions can be triggering which is not really what you want if you are in the thick of the worst symptoms. Fortunately the techniques used with anxiety and depression can be helpful, but I’m still on the lookout for any other titles that are about PTSD or c-PTSD that are more focussed on coping and recovery.

Memoir/Guide - The Choice by Edith Eger

This initially sounds like a pretty heavy going book to read, especially if you are suffering the most invasive and trigger sensitive symptoms of PTSD or c-PTSD, so I would recommend skipping the memoir section if you are particularly vulnerable right now - you can always go back and read it later. Suffice to say, Edith is a survivor of Auschwitz. Her story, however, is one of hope and healing, and she trains as a psychiatrist specifically to help those who have suffered from PTSD and mental illness as she has. She reassures them, and us, that it is possible to survive and even be happy despite horrific trauma, and is deeply empathetic, specifically making it clear that it helps no-one to treat suffering as a hierarchy of deserving and undeserving according to how much we think someone has suffered. Instead she encourages us all to be kind, compassionate, find our purpose in life, and work to make the world a better place in whatever small or large way we can.        

Memoir/Guide - Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor E Frankle

Similar to Edith Eger, this is a combination of psychiatry and personal experience, but with more of a focus on the theoretical side with the author's own experiences of Auschwitz serving as the most extreme examples of what we face in our search for meaning in our lives. He explores how we can find meaning in our existence, in a world that is often cruel, unfair and much more powerful than we are, even in situations that we would be forgiven for believing are entirely hopeless. It’s particularly interesting to because he was a psychiatrist before being sent to the concentration camps, so seems to have been able to use this to help him survive. This is a little less easy to read, and the descriptions of Auschwitz less easy to avoid, but they told in snippets with a little less emotional impact as they are broken up in between the theory the author created after he was freed and able to work as a psychiatrist again after the war. It’s a short book and well worth reading if you are feeling up to it.  

General Mental Health Goodness

Daring Greatly by Brene Brown

Brene Brown has a fancy PhD (so I suppose she’s Dr BB?) which she achieved studying vulnerability, and wrote this book based on her research in the field over the past 20 years. This is accessible academic work, written so us lay people actually understand it, with valuable insights into the effects of shame and the stigma around vulnerability that affect our mental health. It’s not illness specific but is super interesting and helpful for all human people to understand how to live with less shame and more self-acceptance.

Hopefully there is something in this guide to guide you through guides! (I couldn’t resist) However, as we are all different, if they don’t work for you, keep trying, there are a lot of books out there and finding one that clicks will happen eventually.